Yemen Crisis
Yemen Humanitarian Crisis When war tore through her home town of Taizz, Hadiya fled with nothing. Now, she is camped out with her children and grandchildren in a wreck of a building many miles away—unable to return home and uncertain what the future might hold. Send...
UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie calls for lasting ceasefire in Yemen
UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie today called for the urgent establishment of a ceasefire in Yemen and a lasting settlement to the conflict. She welcomed recent discussion of a halt to hostilities, and called on the United Nations Security Council, working...
Racing to avert a monsoon catastrophe in Bangladesh
By Tim Gaynor in Kutupalong refugee settlement, Bangladesh Their few belongings packed into rice sacks, Momena Begum and her husband Mohammad Harez squat on a damp plot of sand just above the waterline, waiting to move out. Almost surrounded by a chest-deep stream,...
Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett calls for Rohingya aid
After recent visit to Bangladesh, Blanchett says more international support for displaced and host communities is urgently needed ahead of monsoon rains. COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh – UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett today warned of a “race against time” to...
UNHCR’s Grandi appalled at suffering of civilians in Syria
By Charlie Dunmore in Beirut, Lebanon UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has described the suffering of civilians in Eastern Ghouta as an appalling example of the human tragedy resulting from the conflict in Syria, which has now been raging for seven...
Seven facts about the Syria crisis
1. More than half of all Syrians have been forced to flee their homes There are over 5.5 million registered Syrian refugees and more than six million people displaced inside Syria. Syria accounts for the world’s largest number of forcibly displaced people with...
Why thousands of children in Central America are forced to flee
By Jean-Nicolas Beuze, UNHCR Canada Representative Last fall, I travelled to Honduras, meeting children sheltered in a project supported by UNHCR. To break the ice, I asked what you might ask any teen: “What’s your dream when you grow up?” To my surprise, quite a few...
Into the field: A Canadian newcomer to UNHCR reflects on her first international mission
By Lauren La Rose First came the scream. Then the giggles followed. Sadly, I don’t speak Arabic, but the language of pure joy needs no translation. It was etched all over the face of five-year-old Rajaa who stood alongside her two friends, huddled together, doubled...